


Doctor's Orders

by curious_eye



Category: Space Force (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24848539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curious_eye/pseuds/curious_eye
Summary: Based on a prompt:Tony is having very low self-esteem and somebody (maybe Chan) helps him (From AnxiousGayBean)
Relationships: Chan Kaifang & F. Tony Scarapiducci, Chan Kaifang/F. Tony Scarapiducci
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	Doctor's Orders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnxiousGayBean](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AnxiousGayBean).



Chan got halfway through his explanation to the general before his less than surreptitious glances towards Fuck Tony were acknowledged.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just sulking.” Naird had followed his flickering gaze the last few times and looked more firmly in Tony’s direction as he spoke. The other man was over by the door to the lab, leant against the glass wall with his head tilted to rest there too. For the first time Chan could remember, he hadn’t tried to touch a thing upon entering the room, hadn’t even said a word.

“Sulking?” Chan echoed, noticing that the change in subject hadn’t caught the attention of the man in question. “You’ll have to tell Doctor Mallory how you did it, sir. He’s always looking for ways to get Tony to stop talking.” It felt like a small achievement when the general huffed out a short laugh, the moment passing when he turned a more perplexed expression back on Tony.

“I only told him we weren’t going with one of his ideas. He said he thought it wasn’t great when he pitched it!” He shook his head, looking surprised when Doctor Mallory came up behind him, having slipped in past a still subdued Tony with a bemused glance in his direction.

“Yes, and that’s called having self-esteem issues,” Mallory chipped in, clearly only joining the conversation to get one-up on Mark and not knowing who they were referring to.

“Tony Scarapiducci will be the last man on earth to be suffering in that department,” Naird responded almost immediately. Doctor Mallory looked thoughtful for a moment, clearly drawing no conclusions that seemed worth sharing. Chan was tempted to argue the contrary, especially judging from Tony’s demeanour but the conversation turned swiftly back to his proposed solution to their latest issue.

As Naird and Mallory eventually departed the room, Chan returned his attention to his research, focusing so completely on the microscope slide in front of him that he didn’t hear the brief exchange in the back of the room.

“Are you staying here, then?”

“Do you need something?”

“Not right now. Look, about earlier, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

The infrequent humming of the fluorescent tube lighting had long since faded into obscurity, making any hint of an out of place sound seem loud in the silence. There was shuffling at the door. Chan amended his list of people currently in the room.

“Are you just going to stand there watching me? It’s kind of creepy.” He looked up momentarily from his work, just making out the warped reflection of Tony in some of the glass apparatus in front of him.

“Oh, I’ll just-” Tony jabbed his finger towards the door, a sudden rush of sheepishness protruding above his supposed sulking.

“I didn’t mean that,” Chan said, turning around and sighing at the thought of having to spell it out. He’d made a judgement call on Tony’s personality early on into their working relationship, one that he’d re-thought on a couple of occasions. They were hardly similar nor coded to get on well with each other but maybe there was something almost endearing about Tony’s continual efforts to get things right. “Just, if you’re staying can you do it where I can see you and not just feel you behind me like some sort of murderer?” 

He deliberately didn’t add the ‘I don’t trust you not to be touching and subsequently ruining all of our experiments’ line, sensing that the other man had been berated enough for things he hadn’t even done yet for one day.

Tony hesitantly dropped into the chair two desks over from Chan, his eyes wandering over the ceiling slowly as his leg bounced up and down at a far faster tempo.

“What’s up?” Chan asked, waiting until he needed to be turned away, with his face pressed against the microscope to pose a question Tony probably wouldn’t want to answer. The proceeding silence confirmed his suspicions and he almost expected to be alone in the room when he completed his observation. Surprisingly Tony was still there, as twitchy as before.

“The general wasn’t as interested in an idea I’d been working on as I’d hoped he’d be,” he said reluctantly once Chan turned in his chair and decided that staring at the other man until he got an answer might produce more results. “I’d been developing it for quite a while.”

“Anything interesting?” Chan turned away again, seemingly satisfied that they had achieved the beginnings of a conversation.

“Not really,” Tony muttered half heartedly.

“You must have thought there was something in it if you worked on it for that long,” the scientist argued back lightly. There was no point sounding accusatory when Tony was teetering between fight and flight. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of some verbal self-defence and Tony fleeing was hardly a productive outcome.

“I don’t know, man. There obviously wasn’t,” Tony poorly concealed a sigh and continued to stay put despite the restless energy that had spread to his tapping fingertips now.

“Well, no one’s going to get on board with your ideas if you don’t even think they’re worth the time,” Chan reasoned, watching Tony freeze in place except for his eyes which flickered around the room as he mulled this over. “And maybe what you’ve taken as total rejection from General Naird was just constructive criticism? I know I wasn’t there, but-”

“He didn’t entirely discount it,” Tony admitted slowly, gaze shifting again as he stared sidelong at Chan. “How did you know that?”

“You’ve got some serious self-esteem issues,” Chan replied matter-of-factly, echoing Mallory’s conclusion from earlier. Tony’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape, making him look almost comically taken aback. “Trust me, that shit needs dealing with before it gets in the way of everything.”

“I don’t – err - I’m good,” Tony's voice had modulated through the pitches, settling on one above his natural frequency.

“If you don’t value your own work, no one else will,” Chan suggested, shifting his attention back to the microscope once more. This time it was purely for his own benefit; he hadn’t expected to be sharing life lessons with Tony that afternoon.

“Where did you get the embroidered tea towel that told you that?” Tony asked. Chan snorted, his glasses hitting against the microscope lens as the surprising laugh shook his body.

“My PhD professor told me, actually,” he admitted carefully, “People don’t take you seriously in science if you don’t find a bit of arrogance from somewhere.”

“You’re not arrogant,” Tony interjected, the response oddly fast, like a knee-jerk reflex. Chan smiled very slightly to himself, comfortable in the knowledge that his face was still obscured by the equipment in front of him.

“I only need to be when I’m not getting taken seriously,” he stressed more clearly, pushing himself upright from his position over the microscope and looking at Tony once more. “It’s not so much arrogance, anyway. More just self-belief. Who’s going to fund a scientist who sounds like they don’t expect to get any results?”

“No one,” Tony answered reluctantly, his eyebrows drawing together as he realised he was getting slowly talked into denouncing his own opinion, “Fair enough. So I try to listen to the improvements Naird was suggesting instead of hearing, you know, rejection.” He phrased the word discontentedly as if acknowledging it out loud was humiliating.

“You got it,” Chan replied, making himself sound condescending to make it easier for Tony to laugh and lapse back into the less open person he preferred to be. Predictably, Tony laughed. Less predictably, he stayed fixed in place, leaning forwards on his elbows.

“And then I suggest it again?” He asked, motivated by Chan’s nod of confirmation, “And try to sound less like I hate my own work?”

“How about instead of _sounding_ like you think your own work is good, you actually believe it?” Chan suggested, slightly dumbfounded when this provoked yet another revelation in Tony’s eyes. “You know you’re handling the entire media presence of a branch of the U.S. military, right? Not to mention it’s the one with the most potential to be a total laughing stock.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost,” Tony interjected with a mutter. Chan rolled his eyes.

“Let me finish,” he retorted patiently, “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re still here, we’re still getting funded, there hasn’t been a huge scandal about anything.”

“Huh,” Tony exhaled slowly, his fingers drumming against the desk once more. He swung his head over to glance at Chan again. “I see why they hired you.” He pointed up and down at the scientist. “Clever.”

“Yeah,” Chan replied simply, before mimicking Tony and pointing at himself, “And that right there, is a bit of self-belief.”

Tony stood up the next time Chan was absorbed in another observation. Chan felt him hovering at his shoulder, smirking a little at the hesitation he was sure was driving this behaviour. The other man seemed to shuffle between each foot, maybe waiting for Chan to resurface from his work. Emboldened by the confidence from Tony listening to him with that wide-eyed attention, Chan stayed put daringly, waiting to see what the other man would do.

“Thanks,” Tony said eventually, clearing his throat a little. Chan felt his furrowed brow catch the side of the microscope; maybe he was reading into things and it had just been that hard to express a bit of gratitude. But then, a hand rested on his own momentarily, nothing more than a brief squeeze and the sweep of his thumb over Chan’s skin.

He was gone before the sensation of his tentative touch had entirely gone away. Chan sat back in his chair and stared hard at the invisible line he’d left behind, tracing it gingerly with his own finger.

“Any time.”


End file.
